|
Project reason |
 |
 |
Why does the consortium wish to undertake this project?
The sector of tourism and catering is without no doubt europeanwide one of the strongest driving forces for the economic development and this applies for older and new as well as future member states of the European Community.
“Tourism is one of the most important sectors of the European economy; GDP generated by tourism represents already 5 % in the core industry with another 7 % in the related economy. With two million enterprises in Europe, the tourism sector is responsible for seven million jobs in the core industry (or 5 % of the total workforce) and 20 million jobs in total with the related economy (or an additional 8 % workforce). This means that the tourism sector is also capable of creating 100000 new jobs per year”.
The European industry is besides other trends facing more and more the demand for high quality tourism which closely related to high quality employees with excellent competencies and skills. Furthermore if the real potential of the tourism and catering sector related to the employment possibilities should be exploited to full extension mobility of workers is one of the core issues.
There is nearly no other economic sector where flexibility and mobility of workforce has such an importance. At this stage mobility is still heavily hindered by the lack of transparent and recognisable qualifications and competences and there is Europe wide a huge need for models to allow mutual recognition of competences and skills.
Already in June 2001 the Final Report Working Group B, Improving Training in order to upgrade skills in the tourism industry came to the conclusion that “Transparency and Validation of Qualifications/Mobility/Career-paths must be a priority subject in the tourism sector in Europe”, together with the developed European Credit Transfer System for Vocational Education and Training we now have the possibility to establish a model and system to allow mutual recognition of competences.
The ECVET based model would for the first time provide a system for transparency of learning outcomes together with an approach for the concrete implementation in the sector, however the tourism sector and industry has some further peculiarities which must be taken into account: vocational education and training in the tourism sector is like in no other sector to a large extent also provided by tourism companies, hotels, spas, clubs etc. When developing a ECVET based model for recognition and transparency of competences and learning outcomes the development must reflect this in a proper way.
Therefore ECVET TC NET will be a multistakeholder ECVET network for tourism and catering involving high class tourism schools, vocational training centres, universities, hotels, cruise ship companies, holiday clubs, spas and other relevant institutions to achieve a well thought and well accepted result. |
|
